Vice President Kashim Shettima has dosclosed that Brazil opened its market to Nigerian exports of hibiscus, sesame and shea butter.
According to a statement issued on Monday by Stanley Nkwocha, Senior Special Assistant on Media and Communications to Shettima, he stated this at a High-Level Nigeria-Brazil Agro-Trade Market Access Milestone meeting at the State House, Abuja.
Announcing this as the first tangible fruits of President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to Brazil last August, the vice president declared that Nigeria and Brazil had moved from dialogue to delivery and from agreement to implementation on their bilateral agriculture and livestock partnership.
The Vice President who co-chairs the Nigeria-Brazil Strategic Dialogue Mechanism alongside his Brazilian counterpart, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, described the milestones recorded under the Nigeria-Brazil Agriculture and Livestock Cooperation Framework as the product of months of painstaking institutional work.
Shettima noted that the Joint Agriculture and Livestock Technical Working Group was now fully operational, with active thematic action sub-groups on dairy and livestock genetics, soybean productivity, agricultural policy and agro-climatic risk zoning.
The vice president recalled that during the state visit last August, President Tinubu and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had observed that the volume of bilateral agricultural trade between the two economies fell far short of what both nations’ natural endowments permitted.
Consequently, the two leaders jointly instructed their governments to identify opportunities for accelerating trade, investment and technical cooperation.
Shettima expressed Nigeria’s gratitude to the Brazilian government for deepening its institutional presence in Abuja through the appointment of an Agricultural Attaché and the growing engagement of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, EMBRAPA, through the Embassy.
The Brazilian delegation was led by its Minister of Agriculture and Livestock, André Carlos Alves de Paula Filho, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
